Liza

Let's dedicate a thread to this topic of living in the south pacific islands - or at least having roots with polynesian, micronesian or whatever Have you visited south pacific islands such as Guam, Saipan, Yap, Tahiti, Pohnpei, Samoa, Phillipines, Hawaii, etc? What about them did you like? What do you not like about them?

I really do miss the islands where I grew up in. I'd love to talk about it. It seems like more and more islanders joined this forum. Hurra! More the merrier!

Deafness

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Liza

I also wonder what your childhood was like in the islands.

I'll share mine - my father was born in New Jersey with strong bloodlines to french, german, irish, and scotch. He worked as a government official for the insular affairs, so he made frequent trips to the islands. He also made his home there, and incidentally he met my mom in Palau. They married and had me and my other 3 siblings. We lived in Saipan, but we kids got born in Guam and Palau for some reason. I guess my mom wanted to be close to her relatives to help her with the birth, and the birth is also an important occasion in Palau. New mothers get celebrated in a ceremony - with the mother wearing nothing but grass skirt (not one of those commerically made skirts, but made from real grass by family) and a bunch of leis and flowers. Yeah, she went topless in front of everyone. But hey, that was normal. Dad was always scuba diving and having these little BBQ & Budweiser beer drenched parties with his work associates. That was the kind of life I had in the islands. It was a pleasant one, being surrounded by dozens of cousins and aunts and uncles. I miss it. Now I'm married and living in Norway. One day I'll show my husband Palau and Saipan.

HoneyShot

Does this include Melanesian too? You forgot Melanesians!

Seriously, My family is very mixed, so I'm only a little of anything, but my Dad's mother was 1/2 Fijian (Melanesian, also the Fijian part of my family is also part Solomon Islander, but that's going back a long way, and I don't know the cultures there well at all.). Also I live in New Zealand, which is in the South Pacific ofc! I've been to many of the islands, but the pacific culture I've had the most contact with is probably Maori (indiginous people of Aotearoa/New Zealand, Polynesian) because it's right here. Sad thing is, I speak (& read & write) Maori, but not much Fijian at all. It is hard to learn from far away especially when most of my family here do not know the language either. I find Maori very hard to lipread, but English much easier. The spoken differences between words in Maori can be very subtle, so it is hard to see on the lips. New Zealand had a very western culture, and is predominantly European, but there is a lot of pride in the Pacific cultures that make up our people and do influence our culture too.

Ka kite e hoa mai,
HS.